Clarity with Marketing & Sales Resulting in Powerful Growth

Case Study

BACK TO WORK

The Burney Company was founded in 1974 by esteemed Brigadier General Jack Burney after retiring from a distinguished military career. Jack built his company upon a disciplined methodology, beginning with a military-issue slide rule and data from the library. The Burney Company is one of the first fee-only Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) firms in Virginia, and was initially focused solely on investment management. Burney Wealth Management was established as a sister company to the Burney Company, providing comprehensive financial planning, retirement planning, and investment planning services. The team of certified financial planning professionals and CFA charterholders offers objective advice and clear solutions that help its clients achieve their financial goals.

The Marketing Challenges

With a steady referral source program disappearing due to changes in the industry, Burney Wealth Management knew it needed strategic marketing direction to continue to grow. While highly adept at engaging with potential clients once introduced, Burney needed a plan for effectively marketing itself to generate steady leads. Areas for improvement included:

Industry Knowledge. After several rounds of agencies that struggled with the learning curve of the financial services industry, the Burney team was ready for a marketing partner with people who understand the role compliance plays, who know what AUM, ETF or CFP mean…or the difference between investment management and wealth management.
Messaging. Burney sought to pinpoint its messaging – demystifying the company’s value proposition, unifying its story, and shifting the focus from itself to the client.
Sales Content. Burney needed marketing content to fuel its sales team’s efforts, including prospecting materials that generate excitement, and website content that effectively nurtures potential clients.
Marketing Plan. After years of experimenting with different tactics, Burney was struggling to define a clear plan for its marketing strategy. The team had hustle, intuition and industry experience, but lacked the marketing expertise to determine the most effective path forward. When there are 100 marketing to-do’s, where do you start and how do you get the most bang for your buck?
Implementation. Once equipped with cohesive messaging, effective content, and a strategic plan, Burney needed a supporting team to put their strategy to work for them. Current employees had great ideas, but were too busy managing client relationships.

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“We've had a tremendous experience working with the entire Craft Impact team. In just under a year they've helped us refine our messaging and target market, develop our new website, and onboarded our team to the HubSpot platform. We're excited to continue working together to implement our strategic growth plans.”

-Adam Newman, Managing Partner & Wealth Advisor

The Craft Impact Solution

Burney Wealth Management began partnering with Craft Impact in May 2021. Before getting carried away into random marketing tactics, Craft facilitated the execution of a thoughtful, intentional 90-day strategic marketing plan.

Every 90 days, this plan is revisited and revised – taking into account both marketing analytics and the strategic business opportunities that Burney wants to pursue. This gives both sides the opportunity to check in, review deliverables/results, and chart the most effective path forward. In short, Burney focuses on being a fiduciary for their wealth management clients, and leverages Craft as an outsourced chief marketing officer (CMO).

With a team of marketing and communication strategists, copywriters and graphic designers, Craft has been able to support the Burney marketing and sales effort, through various deliverables:

StoryBrand BrandScript + Messaging Matrix from Client Interviews

Craft interviewed Burney’s clients directly, gaining a full understanding of where ideal wealth management clients find the most value in their partnership
Key themes and opportunities found through the client interviews were consolidated into a messaging matrix for the Burney leadership team
Interview takeaways were paired with StoryBrand messaging workshops with Burney’s internal team
The resulting StoryBrand BrandScript tells the Burney story in a compelling and cohesive way, and serves as a company-wide framework that can be used for all marketing, communications and sales collateral

Sales Collateral

The business development team can leverage any number of sales collateral PDFs to nurture leads and help convert prospects into new clients. These range from educational pieces to company information, for example:
- Custom Financial Plan Roadmaps (sample PDFs with confidential information removed)
- Client Success Map PDFs
  - Visual selling tools that demonstrate what a relationship with Burney looks like, and what a client can expect
- Packet of Burney Wealth informational materials (digital brochure)

HubSpot Sales Hub Tools: Setup, Training and Support

Craft set up and trained Burney advisors and client service representatives on HubSpot's Sales Hub tools, specifically:
- Automated sales emails (HubSpot Workflows and Sequences)
- Personalized 1:1 video using Vidyard
- Snippets and Templates for faster email processing
- Documents for trackable PDFs (receive notifications when prospect opens or views)

These tools are designed to help advisors and business development employees more effective and efficient in their sales outreach and follow-up.

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Updated Current Website Copy

Craft updated the current website copy following the StoryBrand BrandScript and Messaging Matrix: short-term improvements to provide more relevant, compelling content while a new website is designed and developed

Email Newsletters to Clients and Prospects (Strategy & Execution)

Craft is responsible for designing and executing multiple email newsletters each month to segmented audiences. Email campaigns have been a powerful tool to stay top of mind, and engage with prospects and clients. Specific use cases include:
- sharing relevant videos for lead nurturing or education on recent events
- promoting lead magnets such as the Custom Financial Plan Roadmap
- promoting monthly webinar series
- sharing blog articles to engage their readers
A/B testing subject lines and email content to increase engagement

1:1 Personalized Videos for Prospects and Client Communications

Craft worked to set up and train the team on creating and sharing 1:1 videos. These videos help convey the personal side of Burney Wealth Management's team, whether they are connecting with long-time clients or qualifying and nurturing good fit prospects.

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Virtual Webinars

Facebook ad creative and targeting strategy
Email promotional campaign to prospects
Integration between Zoom, Hubspot, and registration landing page to auto-create contacts in CRM
Collaboration with presenters to develop outline and slide deck
Follow-up automated email sequence to prospects, including personalized 1:1 sales videos

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New BurneyWealth.com Website

Redesigned BurneyWealth.com website for better user experience and higher lead generation
Revised content marketing strategy showcasing Burney’s unique value proposition
SEO analysis and current content analysis with recommendations
Communication strategy to announce and engage current clients and prospects about new website

Previous Site:

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New Site:

The Results

Partnering with Craft Impact, Burney Wealth effectively defined their value proposition, unified their messaging, and rallied around a comprehensive, strategic digital marketing plan.

"We had worked with firms prior with mixed results and knew very quickly in our engagement with Craft that we were working with the right group. They delivered every step of the way, and the end result is a website we can be proud of promoting and a marketing strategy that will allow us to continue to grow our business! ...they also equipped us with all of the necessary marketing collateral and helped us understand best practices for cultivating leads. These type of engagements mean a lot of time spent with each other and we are fortunate to call the Craft Impact crew not only colleagues but friends!"

-Kyle McFarland, Partner & Wealth Advisor

Clarifying the process around their clients’ road to success served as a foundation for sales collateral that is easily understandable and digestible for clients. Burney is now equipped with the resources and strategy it needs to illustrate its unique offering, with confidence that the strategic marketing through Craft is truly supporting the business as a whole.

Recent marketing & sales wins include:

41% increase in monthly webinar registrations
Alignment and execution of digital marketing strategy that builds excitement and engagement from current and prospective Burney clients
Implementation of marketing content that effectively reaches target audience in various stages of the marketing funnel (awareness, consideration, and decision stages)